40 Ideas for Lent 2015

Other things you might want to consider “giving up”: social media, cynicism (replace with wonder, compassion, and hope), perfectionism, legalism, TV, sugar, reading authors and bloggers who tend to look and think like you, comparison, etc. One fast that has crossed my mind this week is the idea of giving up the consumption of people for Lent. Our culture (through social media, reality TV, celebrity gossip, etc.) has so profoundly commodified people—actual human beings— it’s become a phenomenon we hardly even notice anymore. Only recently have I been contemplating the significance of this trend, catching myself in the act of commodifying and consuming other people and also experiencing the pain of being commodified and consumed myself. I’m not exactly sure what “giving it up” would look like, but I’d like to try.